Press the advantage.
"More than that, House Cyrdan remembers its friends. Trade routes through the Northern Reach could benefit your people greatly. Goods from the south, medical supplies, tools forged in proper smithies rather than field expedients."
"You offer bribes," growls a voice from the circle's left side. A massive man with scars that crisscross his face like a map of old battles. "Pretty words to save pretty skin."
"I offer partnership," I shoot back, letting steel enter my voice. "The kind that benefits everyone involved rather than ending in unnecessary bloodshed."
The scarred man takes a step forward, hand drifting toward his axe. "Bloodshed feeds the spirits. Makes warriors strong."
"And leaves children fatherless," I reply without thinking.
The words hang in the frozen air like an accusation. Several elders exchange glances, and I realize I've stumbled onto something important.
Children.
Every clan needs them to survive, but life in the Northern Reach must be hard on the young. Harder still if their fathers die in pointless conflicts with southern nobles seeking revenge for slain daughters.
The chief elder raises one weathered hand, and silence falls instantly.
"The child speaks of things beyond her understanding," she says slowly. "But perhaps..." She trails off, her gaze moving from me to Vorrak and back again. "Perhaps the spirits sent her here for a reason."
What kind of reason?
Before I can ask, another voice cuts through the night air. Younger than the others, female, with an edge of barely controlled fury.
"She brings death to our clan," the newcomer declares, pushing through the circle to face me directly. "I have seen it in the ice-dreams."
Ice-dreams?
This speaker is younger than the others, perhaps only a few years older than myself. But where I've been softened by privilege and comfort, she bears the harsh beauty of winter itself. White-blonde hair falls to her waist in intricate braids, and her pale blue eyes burn with fanatic intensity.
A seer.
Father's court had them too, though none quite so dramatic.
"Tell us of these dreams, Kira," the chief elder commands.
The seer straightens, her gaze growing distant. "Blood on snow. Soldiers in southern colors marching through passes that should be secret. Our children taken, our elders slain, our sacred places defiled by foreign boots."
Several clan members mutter prayers or curses. Even Vorrak looks troubled, though he tries to hide it.
"Dreams show possibility, not certainty," the chief elder observes. "And sometimes they lie."
"Do they?" Kira's attention snaps back to the present, fixing on me with laser intensity. "How many tracking your path, soft-land child? How many soldiers in your father's service?"
Thousands.
The honest answer would doom me instantly. Father commands one of the largest private armies in the realm, and right now they're probably scouring every mountain pass within a hundred miles of home.
But not yet.
The storm would have delayed any organized search for days. Even now, they'd be focusing on the most obvious routes, the well-traveled paths that a pampered noble daughter might logically choose.
"My escape was secret," I say carefully. "No one knows which direction I traveled."
"Lies," Kira hisses. "Pretty lies from a pretty mouth, but lies nonetheless."
"Enough." The chief elder's voice cracks like a whip. "Dreams and accusations solve nothing. The child has spoken for herself. Now others may do the same."
